Olympic GamesOlympics - Sochi 2014
An assessment of the twenty-second chapter of the novel the Olympic winter just past the topical to the history of the sport.
Monday 24 February 2014 15 minutes reading time
You should write an article in the first person but I can not open this budget ventiduesimi Winter Olympics talking about the great emotions that have given me and what I have left in my heart. Olympics live "on the spot" is a unique experience but also not easy, I've lived and between a checking and double checking, transportation inadequate to the needs of fans and insiders and Olympic Villages characterized by the absence of many athletes, especially the Italians, we realize that not everything that glitters is gold, and that the much-vaunted Olympic spirit is not so strong and felt as it looks from the outside, at least not by most athletes and in many cases not even their fault. Of each edition, however, remain the big emotions and big business that the protagonists of these games and give my remaining at the end of these Games that perhaps for the first time I was able to look at trying to lose as little as possible of what was happening.
Probably this has been intensely follow minute by minute the Sochi Olympics that made me feel sensations that I felt more from Lillehammer 1994 Olympic Games the largest in history in an absolute sense, not just winter. Before they started they made great controversy Pharaonic cost of the event, Russian homophobia and a thousand other things, even on the long journey of the torch is switched on and off when he wanted her. A "Play hard" I can say that the Olympics were unexpectedly beautiful for those who were on the eve of the premises, with spectacular races, starting with those of the new Olympic discipline of slopestyle, and ski Alpine ski races have given more than worthy of the Olympics except perhaps the two giants and the second heat of the men's slalom drawn by Ante Kostelić in an even more insane its usual standards.
Very few spots, apart from the "zero tituli" Italy: the lack of public presence in some races, for all those of alpine skiing, the withdrawal for back pain from the artistic male Evgeny Plushenko, the athlete who a whole nation and all the fans were waiting at home and that was pesantissimamente criticized for this package, and the questionable verdict of the most beautiful and exciting race of these Olympics, the women's free program of the artistic skating. No one takes my head that the Olympic champion Adelina Sotnikova, however wonderful and adorable skater, has been overstated score "program components" and at the same time defending champion Kim Yu-na has been penalized on the same score and also on the degree of execution of technical elements, in particular of the jumps.
Either way, the verdict favored the home athlete and like it or not we must accept it without absolutely demonize the figure skating as some have hoped even his removal from the Olympic program, with its destruction of the dreams of boys and girls for pursue the goal of a medal in five circles want to engage in a sport by the age-old tradition and prestige. Remain the strong emotions that Kim and Adelina gave us with their performance, in addition to those that gave me the best Carolina Kostner who has ever seen in a race at an international level so as to win a bronze medal on the eve seemed impronosticabile, but also Mao Asada, the author of a free space after a disastrous short program ahilei, and do not forget Valentina Marchei, eleventh in his first Olympics, and like Carolina and wine improve with age.
In the category "big emotions" I tried also includes the crazy comeback with a lot of winning sprint Charlotte Kalla who gave Sweden a gold in the women's relay was missing from the fund 54 years, and then the 4 penalties on 6 tempted the match-winner in the United States-Russia hockey TJ Oshie, the triumph of the Ukrainian women's relay biathlon within hours of the massacre of Kiev, and how not to admire the great "old" as the Russian luger Albert Demchenko and Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai, who at 42 a and 41 years have won both an individual silver to their seventh Olympiad! About Elders who have moved, there are two splendid forties who have beaten two of the many record improved in these Olympics: the South Tyrolean Armin Zöggeler with a bronze in the men's luge has become the first to win a medal in the same event in six consecutive Olympics, while a moving Ole Einar Bjoerndalen with success in the sprint medley relay in biathlon and broke the record for Winter Olympic medals held by fellow cross-country skier Bjorn Dæhlie, which has the bulletin board 8 golds and 4 silvers as Ole Einar but a bronze less.
To stay at home Norway, Marit Bjoergen with 6 gold 3 silver and 1 bronze medals won in his career has become the most titled woman at the Winter Games as the most titled in this edition along with the Scandinavian, with three gold medals, were the Belarusian biathlete Darya Domracheva, only to win three individual titles and to the best of its potential espressasi most important occasion, and Victor An, alias Ahn Hyun-soo, South Korea passed the colors Russians after he was excluded from the Vancouver Games his native country. Not many remember him as a teenager but Ahn was one of the protagonists of the dead end of the 1000 Salt Lake City in 2002 was won by Steven Bradbury, has since become the most successful short track skater of all time and Sochi by Russian repeated the loot you brought home from South Korea in Turin in 2006, three golds and one bronze.
We mentioned Bradbury: the men's sprint the fund has had a similar trend and the Swede Emil Jönsson won a medal to which he had renounced down, specifically bronze, for the fall of the three ahead of him when he was detached from the rest of the group and had already raised. Returning to the record, said the EN-plein Germany in luge and Canada in team sports, four golds out of four in both cases, it had never happened in eight races in the same edition of the Winter Olympic podium was monopolized by athletes the same country, the previous record was five, and two of these, the mass start of skiing dominated by Norway between women and men from Russia, the award ceremony was held during the closing ceremony of the ' other much more exciting and engaging than the opening.
In those eight games, on four occasions was the Netherlands to make a hat-trick and one of these has even quadruplet, which did not occur at the Winter Games from 42 years in the women's 1,500 m speed skating , a discipline in which the Netherlands is pulverized the record for gold medals won in a single winter sport portandone home to as many as eight, is that of medals won, 23 out of the 32 available. The sports drama was probably greater than the U.S.'' s girls hockey, which mnuto 3 and a half after the end of the final against the Canadians were winning 2-0 and who have found themselves losing 3-2'' s overtime, but also the'' Dutchman Koen Verweij not forget anytime soon 3 milliseconds for which he lost the'' gold men's 1500 meters, one of the few'' missed by Holland in speed skating. Finally, the medal, won in 2010 as the host nation, especially significant given that the last host country not to win it, in 2006, was just Italy. And here we come to the sorrowful notes: for the first time in the last 34 years the Blues return home without a gold medal, to be precise with two silver and six bronze medals and as many as eight fourth places.
It was feared that the budget could be even worse, given the general state of health of our movement for winter sports, but as a champion Arianna Fontana, with one silver and two bronze medals in short track speed skating, and a "beast of great events" such as Christof Innerhofer with silver in the downhill and bronze in the super combined have made dramatic budget less disastrous, apart from the already mentioned Zöggeler and Kostner and bronze in the biathlon mixed relay, exciting precisely because it is difficult to predict the eve . We must start from these medals and also by fourth places, some of which count as a medal won by Daniela Merighetti such as downhill and slalom Stephen Gross, to boost winter sports in Italy, which has never been made after turin 2006 indeed, some of those Olympic facilities were no longer used making it extremely difficult to train for the athletes of the corresponding disciplines.
It 's time to change course especially at the level of media exposure, which remains non-existent part in the Olympics for the disciplines of snow and ice compared to other sports such as rugby where, however, it continues to win little or nothing, and then we need to focus on Young people especially in sports where, at least in the men's field, and the impression that it is still alive in the memory of the glories of the recent past. The Sochi Olympics are a terrific spot for all winter sports media and we hope that many boys and girls are in love with these wonderful and disciplines who wish to pursue a dream which is what almost all of those who are involved in sports, Olympic medal. And 'the new recruits that we need for this movement remains alive and possibly come back to be a winner as it was up to eight years ago.
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